Friday, August 18, 2017

So much for being organized and having my Fab Friday challenge card all set way ahead of time! I had the card finished and submitted but I forgot to actually write up the post on my own blog. Duh! I think I need a vacation!

Here is a great sketch this time around. Check out what the Design Team created and then join in with us!

Here is my card using the This Little Piggy stamp set. I had fun doing this one but the tilt is still throwing me off!

Since I'm late getting this one up just a few things to note on this card; I used the flower stamp from Wood Words and embossed it in white to stand in for the doily element peeking out from the edge. I also stamped it 2 more times on the Wood Textures DSP in Crumb Cake. The sentiment is also from Wood Words and is embossed.

The pig (isn't he/she cute??) is stamped with Stazon onto watercolor paper and colored with an Aquapainter and ink pads.

Thursday, August 17, 2017

As much as I want to dive right into all of the Christmas goodness from my Holiday catalog I am trying to not rush the seasons. While I can't stand the fact that stores put out seasonal items 3+ months before the actual season I am certainly not opposed to beginning to make my Christmas cards this early but I will definitely be trying to design a lot of fall cards too. Even though it probably won't feel like fall here for at least another month, school is starting right after Labor Day so that is reason enough to get into the fall mode.

When placing my Holiday catalog preorder I waivered a bit on whether or not to get the Pick a Pumpkin set. But in the end I decided that a fall themed set with a few pieces that could be used for Halloween would be a good idea. And it's a bundle with coordinating dies so that was appealing too.

The card base is Very Vanilla thick and then another layer of Very Vanilla embossed with the Pinewood Planks 3D embossing folder. I lightly swiped some Crumb Cake ink over the texture using a sponge to give it some depth and definition.

Next, I use a scrap of the Wood Textures DSP and die cut just the front of the crate from the Wood Crate framelits set. It makes for a nice little feature on a card so you don't always have to make a full crate with this die set.

The gourds and pumpkins were stamped in a bunch of different fall colors; Pumpkin Pie, Crushed Curry, Pear Pizzazz and Cajun Craze. After inking up the stamp I used a blender pen to remove the ink from the stem portion and then re-colored it with my Garden Green marker. Once they were all stamped I cut them out with the Patterned Pumpkin Thinlets dies. I even cut some cute little vines in Garden Green.

I arranged all the fall bounty in the crate and then added a bit of linen thread I found in my scrap bin. The sentiment is from a Holiday Catalog set called Labels to Love which has a new matching punch which I didn't use here but is a really nice shape for all kinds of cards. I stamped the sentiment here Chocolate Chip and punched it out with a circle punch as it fit the scale of the crate better.

The crate and all is popped on dimensionals to finish this card off.

I'm looking forward to playing some more with the Pick a Pumpkin bundle. Maybe some nice jack-o-lanterns next?

Wednesday, August 16, 2017

After the events over the weekend in Charlottesville I needed to just make a card that was positive and sweet and 'made with LOVE in Virginia' so I pulled out the colors to play along with the Paper Players Challenge. Pear Pizzazz, Bermuda Bay and Calypso Coral make for a fun combo.

The card base is Whisper White with another layer of Whisper White on top with the corners rounded. The strip of DSP is from the retired Tasty Treats.

I stamped the jar in Basic Gray, cut it out, added the hearts in the challenge colors and then wrapped some Calypso Coral baker's twine around and popped it up on a Stitched Shapes circle. The circle is then popped over the top of the DSP strip.

To make the sentiment banners I used the Jar of Love set as well as the Tabs for Everything set. Once they were stamped and cut I slipped them under the edge of the circle and lined everything up.

Monday, August 14, 2017

It seems that I've totally skipped over autumn and gone straight to winter and Christmas! I promise I will get to some fall cards made (especially using the Colorful Seasons bundle) but for today winter it is. I wanted to use the colors of the soon to be closing Color Throwdown challenge. I thought the brighter pastel colors were fun especially since we're in the middle of summer and being the seasonal stamper that I am I barely look at my Subtles collection this time of year. So a true challenge it was!

I thought some snowflakes with the challenge colors would be fun.

I decided to do 3 snowflake panels with each of the challenge colors as the background- Powder Pink, Perfect Plum and Pool Party. I pulled out my scrap bag of watercolor paper and cut 3 squares and then used my Aquapainter to add drops of ink to the paper. I pre-wet the watercolor paper so that the inks would spread a bit on their own and then left them to dry a bit. After they dried for a time I hurried things along with the heat gun.

After the squares were dry I stamped the 2 sizes of snowflakes from Colorful Seasons in Versamark and then embossed them with white embossing powder. I popped each square up on dimensionals to a slightly larger square Whisper White square and mounted them to a Pool Party card front.

The part that took the longest for this card was finding a sentiment that fit into the small square! I pulled out all of my current Christmas/winter sets, even my brand new 2017 Holiday catalog preorder items and none of the sentiments fit; either in the panel or with the style/theme of the card. Into the retired sentiment drawer I went and pulled out the long retired Endless Wishes stamp set. Ah-ha! Finally some words that I could use! The sentiment is stamped on another square of watercolor paper in Basic Gray ink.

I added a folded bit of Powder Pink ribbon behind the panel before adhering it to the card front. I die cut a tiny snowflake with the Seasonal Layers thinlets using Dazzling Diamonds Glimmer paper and added it to the corner of the sentiment and put a rhinestone in the center for a bit of bling.

Friday, August 11, 2017

I do like my big mug of coffee every morning fixed with lots of cream and sugar just like my grandpa used to make it. He was a carpenter and would fix a thermos full of coffee for his 'coffee break' later in the morning. I remember he even had a special spoon he used to scoop the sugar into thermos. Sometimes my dad would help him out with a job and we would get taken along and we would get to have a 'coffee break' too. What a treat! A sweet, hot drink that we certainly didn't get at home! If they were working around our house even the dog would get a little bit of coffee in her bowl. She would lick lightly around the edge just getting a little taste until it cooled a bit and she could lap it up. My husband teases me now and asks if I would like to have coffee with my sugar and cream! I tell him it's fixed perfectly just like Gramp used to make thank you very much!

These days I mostly have my coffee at home but every once in a while will meet a friend for a quick cup and catch up chat. I think it would be fun to set up a coffee break date with a cute card like this one.

They layout is on from Freshly Made Sketches from earlier this summer. The partial circle element was a challenge to me as I had to keep searching around the house for the right size to trace...none of my dies are even close to being big enough! I think I ended up using one of our small salad plates. The DSP is from the Coffee Break pack and it is a great complimentary set of papers to go with the Coffee Cafe stamp set but it also has a lot of patterns that can stand on their own on non-coffee themed cards.

The cup is stamped in Soft Suede onto Whisper White cardstock. The lid is stamped in Garden Green. The cuff is Pear Pizzazz cardstock with the words stamped in Garden Green. I hand cut these shapes and put my cup together. I'm holding off on getting the dies for this set as all of the images in the set are super easy shapes to hand cut and I haven't seen any designs that use the dies in a way that have convinced me I have to have them. If you're not into fussy cutting then you'll want to get the bundle and save 10% for sure.

I layered the cup over a length of retired Pool Party satin striped ribbon with a linen thread bow.

Thursday, August 10, 2017

I was super late getting this card made for our nephew's birthday and even later getting it off in the mail. I like to tell myself that late birthday cards are just extending the celebrations but really it's just a giant sign of my disorganization! I haven't even looked at birthdays for August yet! Yikes!

This card was the first time I inked up the Burlap background stamp. It really gives a neat texture. I especially like the fringe edge.

Since this was a card for a 9 year old I kept the colors pretty boy-like with the exception of the pink pig. The card base is Tempting Turquoise with the Burlap background stamp also in Tempting Turquoise.

The pig from This Little Piggy was stamped on Shimmery White cardstock. I colored the pig in with Powder Pink ink and an Aquapainter. The grass is Lemon Lime Twist and the sky is Soft Sky. Once it was all colored it was die cut with Stitched Shapes circle framelits.

I stamped 3 ballons from Balloon Celebrations with black for the outlines and then filled them in with Pacific Point, Tempting Turquoise and Lemon Lime Twist. The Balloon punch made quick work out of the punching them out. I added some white baker's twine string to each one and then popped them up with dimensionals around the pig panel.

The final pieces are the Lemon Lime Twist 'hogs and kisses' sentiment banner and a little enamel shape star in Tempting Turquoise.

Wednesday, August 9, 2017

Sometimes when I'm creating cards for my monthly class the projects come together really quickly and I'm pleased with the results right off the bat. Other times it's a struggle to come up with designs that hit on all of my requirements; stamp set, colors, ease of creating for 20+ people, Big Shot or no Big Shot and a host of other variables. Last month was a struggle to get it just right. I had 2 of the cards designed and I wanted to use Beautiful Bouquet and the coordinating Bouquet Bunch framelits for the third.

Well after checking out a lot of samples on Pinterest using the Bouquet Bunch stamp set and having a pile of discarded pieces I was getting frustrated. I realized the tricky thing with this set is that it has so many great flowers you want to make a big, giant bouquet with lots of flowers and leaves like this card I made a while back but for a class setting with a lot of stampers it's just not practical. I had to tone down my cluster of flowers and keep the die cutting to a few passes through the Big Shot.

This is the card that finally worked for me (and hopefully my stampers too)!

The card base is Night of Navy. Next up is a layer of Whisper White embossed with the Layered Leaves 3D embossing folder.

The sentiment from Just Add Text is stamped in Tranquil Tide onto a narrow panel of Whisper White. I think this could be a great birthday sentiment or a thinking of you/hello card. The stem was stamped twice on the other side of the panel also in Tranquil Tide.

Lemon Lime Twist was used to stamp 2 flowers with Night of Navy centers. Night of Navy was used again to stamp one of the flower center stamps onto Whisper White.

Now for the die cutting; The 2 LLT flowers were cut out along with 2 clusters of Night of Navy flowers. The clusters are just dies without a matching stamp and are different sizes. Lastly, the white flower with the Night of Navy center was cut out.

All the blossoms were layered and adhered above or slightly overlapping the stems with the white flower popped on a dimensional.

The final detail is the awesome Crinkled Seam Binding ribbon tied in a knot and adhered with a glue dot over the the stems. I love this ribbon as it's so light it's not a bulky addition and it feels nice and silky.

I'm glad I stuck with this card so that my stampers could see The Beautiful Bouquet bundle in action.

Tuesday, August 8, 2017

I stamped a bit over the weekend but the ideas just weren't coming together very well so I decided to browse some challenges to see if I could get inspired. The Just Add Ink challenge had a "Just Choose 2" challenge. I could pick between Kids, Pets and Patterned Paper. Hmmmm... I checked out my stamps and realized I didn't really have many stamps for kids or of kids and even the pets category was slim pickings (pigs are pets sometimes aren't they??). It's called a challenge for a reason! I finally went with the Foxy Friends stamp set and coordinating punch to create a little kitty!

The easiest part of this card was picking the DSP! I had a strip of the Coffee Break DSP left from another project and the little hearts seemed like a good backdrop for the kitty.

The card base is Whisper White thick, then a smaller panel of Whisper White was embossed with the Pinewood Planks 3D embossing folder. I got this embossing folder when the annual catalog started in June but I haven't used it much but I see lots of possibilities with it, especially for Christmas.

The Coffee Break DSP strip was cut into a banner and a piece of paper doily I had kicking around is tucked just under the edge before adhering to the cardfront.

The sentiment flag is Pear Pizzazz cardstock stamped in black using the Thoughtful Banners stamp set scripty thank you. I added an old retired vintage trinket safety pin with a strip of 1/4" Stitched-edge ribbon tied around it. Technically the color of the ribbon is Old Olive but I thought it was close enough to Pear Pizzazz to still work. It's all attached to the card with a glue dot.

A Whisper White stitched shape oval was die cut as a base for the little kitty. The cat pieces are Smoky Slate with the face stamped in black ink and the legs in Smoky Slate ink. After the pieces were punched I lightly sponged the edges with Smoky Slate to soften them into a bit of "fur". The inside of the ears are colored with clear Wink of Stella which can't really be seen in the photo. The cat's head is popped up with a dimensional.

I'll have to make sure that a cat lover get this thank you at some point so into my stash it goes just waiting for the right thank you opportunity.

Monday, August 7, 2017

I think when I designed today's card for one of my July class projects I must have been dreaming of the beach and longing for our vacation which is still several weeks away! Doesn't this scene just make you want to dig your toes in the sand and feel the ocean breeze on your face? Though I have to say that the beach chairs we have aren't nearly as cute as this sweet red sling chair!

We did some clear block stamping to make this card. Using Soft Sky and Crumb Cake ink pads we pressed the pads directly to the block. About 2/3 of the block in Soft Sky. Then leaving a slight gap, pressed the Crumb Cake to the block to fill in the bottom 1/3. Since the Soft Sky is kind of hard to see on the clear block I found it helpful to lay the block on a piece of white scrap paper to see where to line up the Crumb Cake ink. Next, we spritzed the block lightly with water. Then we stamped the block right to the Whisper White cardstock.

All the images on this card use Colorful Seasons stamp set which has so much versatility! Using the heat gun we dried the cardstock and then stamped the sentiment in Versamark and embossed it in white embossing powder.

The frame of the chair was stamped in Soft Suede, the sling and cup in Real Red. Once that panel was complete we adhered it to a Crumb Cake base.

This technique is a fun and easy way to get different backgrounds. Just switch out the colors, add more or less water and each time you get a something new!

Friday, August 4, 2017

No one has ever accused me of being a fashionista or of even having anything close to resembling 'style' but I am familiar with the Lilly Pulitzer brand. When I think of Lilly Pulitzer clothes I think; kinda preppy, monograms, and expensive! But another thing I think of, which is probably what sticks out in my mind the most is, COLOR! LP has always has colorful clothes with bold, fun patterns. As soon as I got a look at this week's Fab Friday color challenge my mind went right to Lilly Pulitzer! If you're a fan of the brand you might be calling me crazy but that's what I thought when I saw these fun, bright, summery colors. What do you think?

How fun are these? And be still my heart we've got Lemon Lime Twist in the mix!

This is what I came up with for this trio! I don't think you can get any brighter here!

Generally when a color combination is all bright colors I will go for a more CAS card with a lot of white to tone down the colors. I kind of went the opposite way here! I used all 3 colors for the background which is just sponged onto Whisper White cardstock. Next, I stamped and embossed the sentiment from Colorful Seasons in white embossing powder at the top. Don't forget to use your embossing buddy or all that sponging will go to waste with little specks of embossing all over!

Once I had that panel finished I mounted it to a larger panel of Lemon Lime Twist and then onto the Whisper White thick cardfront.

I cut out a sweet little white adirondak chair and stamped and cut out a few flowers in Melon Mambo and Flirty Flamingo using the Colorful Seasons stamp set and matching Seasonal Layers thinlets.

The leaf sprigs were cut out using the Bouquet Bunch framelits and are tucked behind the flowers and chair.

The final bit are the tiny rhinestones in the center of the flowers.

If this card doesn't brighten up your day I don't know what will. Check out the rest of the Fab Friday Design Team ideas and then join in the fun!

Thursday, August 3, 2017

I am so happy that the Daisy Delight bundle is back in the Stampin' Up! store! It was so popular that us demonstrators sold it out during our pre-order before the new catalog even went live for customers. Then, once it was back in stock it sold out again very quickly! Stamps with matching punches are usually popular items but this one sold like crazy and really once you start stamping with it you can totally see why they were flying off the shelf! I'm keeping my fingers crossed that it will continue to stay in stock so I can use it at my August stamp club!

I've been sitting on this sample for a while and it's good to share it now since I think you'll love this set as much as I do!

I had fun trying to make my flower mimc the ones that are on this beautiful Delightful Daisy DSP. I stamped 2 of the daisies in Tranquil Tide and then punched them out with the matching Daisy punch. I used Daffodil Delight ink and my aquapainter for the base color, then added spots of Calypso Coral on the petals and in the center. The 2 daisies are layered and then poppped with dimensionals.

The leaves were stamped with Tranquil Tide stamped off once and then lightly colored in with more Tranquil Tide.

I stamped the sentiment in Tranquil Tide on a narrow strip of Whisper White.

All of this is on a 4.25 x 4.25 square Tranquil Tide card base.

I've seen a lot of samples using the daisy stamp and punch to make coneflowers so I'm going to try my hand at that next with this set!

Wednesday, August 2, 2017

It's still popsicle weather here in central Virginia, though it's not quite as hot as it had been. We've even enjoyed eating dinner outside on the patio and taking a stroll around the neighborhood in the evenings and that can be rare here in July and August. We hope the weather stays nice as we are approaching our beach vacation. In the meantime I am stamping away trying to get ahead of things for my August class.

I made today's card a while back but had to keep re-taking the photographs as I could not seem to get the Lemon Lime Twist to cooperate! I think this is as good as it's going to get! I love LLT but my photography skills are not good enough to do it justice!

I stamped this line up of popsicles in Lemon Lime Twist, Powder Pink and Pool Party with Crumb Cake sticks.

The sentiment is stamped in Versamark and then embossed with white embossing powder. I added a bit of Powder Pink ribbon and a Pool Party baker's twine bow (retired) attached with a staple.

To mimic the bites taken out of some of the popsicles I used my Tree Builder punch to nip off the corner of the card base.

About Me

I'm an at home mom to 2 boys, wife to an awesome husband who just goes with the flow when it comes to my hobby (or as he might call it- obsession!) and an Independent Stampin' Up Demonstrator since 2009.

Copyright Stuff

The content in this blog is my sole responsibility as an independent Stampin’ Up! demonstrator and the use of and content of the classes, services, or products offered here are not endorsed by Stampin’ Up! Stamp images copyright Stampin' Up and designs copyright Amanda Mertz unless otherwise noted. I am sharing on here for personal inspiration and gratification only and posts are not allowed to be copied for submission to contests, magazines etc. Thank you!